A Gallifreyan Christmas Carol
by TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel
Summary: The Doctor is depressed about the events of Series Four when an Eternal abruptly drags him to different points in his timeline, claiming to be his personal Spirit of Christmas Past, Present, and Future.
1. The Spirit of Christmas

**Title**: A Gallifreyan Christmas Carol

**Author:** TardisIsTheOnlyWaytoTravel

**Story Summary:** The Doctor is depressed about the events of Series Four when an Eternal abruptly drags him to different points in his timeline, claiming to be his personal Spirit of Christmas Past, Present, and Future.

**Setting: **Some time just after series four.

**Author notes:**

_Eternals were immortal beings unaffected by the flow of time. They had immense power, but were sometimes amoral beings, posing as gods and causing problems. The new series od Doctor Who mentions them a few times. According to the Ninth Doctor, they were so horrified by the Time War that they fled to another reality. That's all you reall need to know for this fic._

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**A GALLIFREYAN CHRISTMAS CAROL**

**PART ONE**

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The Doctor sat in the bar of an earth hotel, on his eighth banana daquiri, and not even slightly drunk yet. He was feeling depressed and miserable, and the weight of guilt wasn't helping anyway. He'd lost Donna, he'd lost Rose – never mind it was for the good of both of them – and he couldn't forget Davros' words to him, no matter how he tried. He turned people into weapons, just like he said. He came into people's lives, turned them upside down, and blew out again leaving them alone with the devastation. It was time he faced that, time he properly acknowledged who he was.

He was the Oncoming Storm, the Destroyer of Worlds. To far too many whom met him, and many more who never did, he was Death.

He wanted to get drunk.

"Hey there," said a voice, breaking into his musings.

The Doctor looked up, to see a blonde woman in a red felt, fur-trimmed minidress and a santa hat, smiling at him. He knew immediately what she was.

"Oh, no, not one of you," he groaned. "What are _you _doing here?"

The Eternal grinned at him.

"I"m the Spirit of Christmas Past, Present, and Future," she announced jauntily.

"You are not!" the Doctor exclaimed, in outrage. "You're an _Eternal!_ And I thought all of you _left_ this universe, anyway!"

"We did," she agreed. "But one of the best and most brilliant of the Time Lords, sitting around moping in a bar? Too sad."

The Doctor scowled at her glumly, reminded of why he'd come to the bar in the first place.

"Which one _are_ you?"

The Eternal gave him a beautiful smile.

"I'm Time."

The Doctor knew an impulse to ask what had happened to the previous Eternal of that title, but managed to bite his tongue in time. Knowing the Eternals, he probably had no desire to know.

"Come on," the Eternal hauled him to his feet before he could protest, "places to be."

"You can't just take me away!" the Doctor tried desperately, grasping at straws. "I haven't paid for my drink yet!" Which was, of course, a lie, since you had to pay for your drinks here as you bought them.

"You're a Time Lord," Time said, grasping his arm. "Since when do you care?"

And they were gone.

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**End Part One**

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_Poor Doctor...__ heh_**  
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	2. Christmas Past

**Title**: A Gallifreyan Christmas Carol

**Author:** TardisIsTheOnlyWaytoTravel

**Story Summary:** The Doctor is depressed about the events of Series Four when an Eternal abruptly drags him to different points in his timeline, claiming to be his personal Spirit of Christmas Past, Present, and Future.

**Setting: **Some time just after series four.

**Author notes:**

_I dedicate this fic to all my readers, but especially to Wiggiemomsi, for reading all my stuff the way she does, and Jessa L'Rynn, for writing stuff of a quality that we all envy and enjoy. :)_

_Poor Ten, he really is a tortured soul, deep down. :(_

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**A GALLIFREYAN CHRISTMAS CAROL**

**PART TWO**

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"Was that really necessary?" the Doctor complained, still holding his drink, complete with little decorative umbrella. Five centuries, and humans were still decorating their drinks with miniature parasols.

"Sure it was," Time said. "Don't want you getting all depressed and megalomaniac on us. '_The laws of Time are mine! And they will obey me!'_ You'd be like the inverse of the Master, only worse."

The Doctor blinked at her, but she looked totally serious.

"I'm not saying it would last, but if you managed to postpone your next regeneration past the optimal time, which I wouldn't put past you, then we'll have a rather unhappy universe for a while there."

The Doctor decided to take her word on it and abandoned the rather scary (and honestly, faintly tempting) train of thought in order to look around.

It was the TARDIS console room, but as it had been in one of his earlier incarnations, all pristine and white.

"When am I?" he asked Time. The Eternal smiled.

"Let's go see."

She started to walk away.

The Doctor frowned as he walked past semi-familiar rooms, everything he saw ringing a faint bell, but try as he might he couldn't work out what period of life she had brought him to. Then Time stopped and opened a door and he knew, as his eyes widened and all the air left his lungs.

A teenage girl in a minidress, her black hair cut in a 1960s-era bob and her eyes large and thoughtful, sat on the floor contemplating a Christmas tree with her arms around her knees.

"Susan," the Doctor whispered, eyes stinging. He blinked, but the prickling in his eyes just got worse and his vision blurred for a minute. He wiped his eyes without looking away from the bittersweet sight of his granddaughter.

The door opened and an older woman walked in, also dressed as though she were from the sixties, closely followed by a dapper man of about the same age dressed in a suit.

"What do you think?" the woman asked.

Susan continued to look at the tree, head tilted slightly on one side.

"It's certainly decorative," she observed in a slightly puzzled voice, as though she couldn't quite understand why it was there.

"Your grandfather was quite upset to find a trail of pine needles right through the TARDIS," the woman observed dryly. "There was a bit of a mess."

"He's rather like Scrooge at times, isn't he?" the man remarked.

"Ian," the woman rebuked him.

"I don't quite understand what the point of a Christmas tree is," Susan announced. "I mean, it's nice to look at, but it doesn't really serve much purpose, does it?"

"Does it have to?" the woman returned gently.

"Not everything has to have a reason," Ian told the Time Lord child. "Some things are just there for aesthetic value or because they evolved for traditional reasons we can no longer recall."

Susan's gaze turned pensive. As a refugee from Time Lord society she certainly understood _that_ concept.

"She was so young," the Doctor said quietly, watching the scene with a wistful, longing look in his eyes. For once he didn't try to hide how he felt.

At this point an old man with white hair and a sharp blue-eyed gaze entered the room.

"Hmm, examining the tree, are we?" asked the Past Doctor. "Ridiculous tradition."

Susan's eyes turned faintly mischievous as she looked brightly at her grandfather.

Past Doctor 'harrumphed'; to the humans there seemed to be no particular reason for it beyond simple grumpiness; but the Doctor had caught a flicker of the exchange, and in fact Susan had telepathically sent Past Doctor an image of one of the Gallifreyan ceremonies, performed in full Time Lord regalia.

The Doctor had to admit that there was a good reason Susan had always referred to a certain official group as the Silly Hat Brigade. Those robes looked ridiculous, and that hats had only topped the cake. Only he knew that the Past Doctor had harrumphed to subdue a laugh.

Susan cast her eyes down and smiled, able to guess from her grandfather's emotions what his _genuine_ reaction had been.

"I still miss her, you know," the Doctor told Time quietly. "I'd had children of my own, but I was never as close to them as I was Susan. Maybe it's a physical old age thing, that the young endear themselves to you so much more when you're older. Rassilon knows I had the crotchety old man impression down pat."

The Eternal just listened, not trying to interrupt.

"I thought I did the right thing, leaving her with that human, what was his name? – Daoud or Davin or whatever it was, but afterwards, I wondered if that was just as good as abandoning her."

The Doctor's eyes brimmed with pain.

"And then, in the Time War, I killed her. I killed all of them, from the smallest child to the oldest octodecacentenarian, but the _one person_ I could think of, when I set it off was Susan, and how I was ending her life without her ever knowing how or why."

The Doctor's voice cracked. Tears were pouring silently down his face as Time put one comforting hand on his shoulder.

Susan was alone in the room now, curled up on a pile of cushions reading a book.

"Go on," said Time. "She's alone. Tell her what you need to." She gave him a little push.

The Doctor was about to protest that he couldn't, but Susan heard the sound of his footsteps and looked up.

Her eyes widened as brown eyes met brown, and recognition passed between them.

"Oh, Grandfather!" Susan exclaimed in distress, and flung herself at him.

The Doctor held her tightly close, even as his brain argued that she couldn't do this and tried to tell Susan to leave but couldn't find the words.

"Susan," the Doctor managed. "I'm so, so _sorry_."

Susan pulled back a tiny bit to look into his face with concern.

"What happened? What's wrong?" she asked. "Why are you here?"

"It's my fault," the Doctor said. His brain was yelling at him to stop, and he agreed, but his mouth had a mind of its own. "It's my fault you're dead, Susan, I killed you."

The tears were soaking into her dress where he had pressed his face into her shoulder.

"Oh, Grandfather," Susan said, sounding sad. "I'm sure you did your best to avoid it."

"I couldn't," the Doctor whispered. "I had to do it."

Susan rested a hand on his cheek, her eyes pained and empathetic.

"Then you did the right thing."

"Don't you understand?!" the Doctor yelled, sitting back. "You're _DEAD!_"

"I heard you the first time," Susan shot back. "Grandfather, I _know_ you'd never do something like that unless you had to. _Please_ don't let it eat at you." She grabbed his hand. "I love you, and I forgive you. Please, forgive _yourself!_"

The Eternal put her hand on the Doctor's shoulder again, and Susan blinked, looking around as though the Doctor were suddenly invisible.

After a moment she sighed to herself, looking deeply anxious.

"Oh, I do hope he's alright," she said to herself.

The Doctor turned on Time.

"Make her see me!" he demanded.

"No," she replied, but not ungently. "You've seen what you needed to see here."

Susan was left by herself as the Doctor and the Eternal vanished to another time and place.

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**End Part Two**

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_Apologies for any typos; I typed this without my glasses on._

_I haven't yet seen the _Waters of Mars_, alas, but I've heard all about the Doctor's little speech._


	3. Christmas Present

**Title**: A Gallifreyan Christmas Carol

**Author:** TardisIsTheOnlyWaytoTravel

**Story Summary:** The Doctor is depressed about the events of Series Four when an Eternal abruptly drags him to different points in his timeline, claiming to be his personal Spirit of Christmas Past, Present, and Future.

**Setting: **Some time just after series four.

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**A GALLIFREYAN CHRISTMAS CAROL**

**PART THREE**

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The Doctor whirled on Time, eyes dark and wild.

"Take me back!" he demanded. "I wasn't finished yet!"

"Yes, you were," the Eternal responded, completely unruffled by a gaze that made monsters and powerful men quail.

"Mum!" a voice bellowed. "What do you want done with this cake?"

The Doctor froze.

"Donna," he breathed.

Time smiled faintly.

"Welcome to Christmas Present."

The Doctor walked into the kitchen, where Donna was tipping a cake out of a box onto a place. Her mother was calling something from another room, but Donna was grumbling about it and ignoring her.

Well, she _looked_ well, at least. She was wearing a nice dress, and had a paper crown from a Christmas cracker sitting lopsidedly on her head. The Doctor followed as Donna carried the cake into the dining room where her grandfather and mother sat.

"Thanks, sweetheart," Donna's mum said, as Donna put the cake down. The Doctor grinned at that. It looked like Sylvia was finally valuing her daughter as she ought to. While everyone was eating a piece of fruit cake, including the Doctor (he'd pinched a piece, on principle), Donna spoke.

"So," she told Wilf and Sylvia, "I've been thinking, there's this management position opening up, and Sam thinks I should go for it. The pay's pretty good, and there's more responsibility and everything, but I think I could do with a change. Besides, promotion to management for a woman at my age, chance like that doesn't come along very often. Not getting any younger, am I."

"I think it sounds brilliant," Wilf smiled. "You go and manage them, love."

"Are you sure you can handle it?" Sylvia asked.

The Doctor frowned as Donna stiffened slightly.

"I wouldn't be considering it if I didn't think I could do it."

"Then I think it's an excellent idea," Donna's mother said. "It's about time you started using your talents."

A surprised, pleased smile spread over Donna's face, and the Doctor beamed madly.

"Oh, that's my Donna," he crowed.

"Yeah, well, I don't whether I'll get it, but I'll give it a go," Donna told them.

'That's great, Donna." Wilf was happy to see her trying to achieve something.

"So what about this man of yours?" Sylvia asked her daughter. "Are we going to meet him any time soon?"

Donna sent her a slightly wary look.

"I didn't want you scaring him off," she replied. "But yeah, I'm thinking about inviting him round for New Year."

"What's he do?" Sylvia asked.

Donna grinned a little.

"He's a physics professor."

"A physics professor?" her grandfather repeated in surprise.

"What on earth would you two have in common?" Sylvia voiced the thought at the top of her mind.

Donna shrugged.

"Well it's funny, wouldn't have thought I understood anything about physics, but when he talks about it, it's like deep down some part of me understands what he's talking about, like I've already learnt it all somewhere, and forgotten."

The smile was wiped off the Doctor's face at that. Sylvia and Wilf looked faintly panicked.

"Still," Donna continued, missing the exchange, "aside from the physics, you'd be surprised how we get on. Quiet sort of bloke. Good listener. He's never been any good with women coz they always think he's boring, but he's alright as long as you know what he's nattering on about. He's sweet, really. Those other women don't know what they're missing."

Time touched the Doctor's arm, and suddenly the Christmas decorations were gone and it was night, and there were four people at the table instead of three.

The Doctor studied the middle-aged man sitting next to Donna. He wasn't especially good-looking, and he didn't seem to be particularly lively, but he had kind, intelligent eyes.

"So," Wilf said cheerfully, wanting to make the young fellow welcome, "our Donna tells me you're a physics professor."

"Er, I am, yes," the man agreed awkwardly. "I teach, at um, Cambridge, mostly. And do theoretical work." He looked as though he were wracking his brains to work out what to say next, and coming to the painful conclusion he had nothing.

"That must pay fairly well," Sylvia mused speculatively.

Donna sent her a death glare from across the table.

"Never mind that, it must be fascinating to do," Wilf said, waving away the subject of money, and incidentally putting the conversation on more comfortable ground.

Donna's boyfriend gave a small smile.

"I certainly think so. Unfortunatley, most people don't understand the subject well enough to follow when I'm talking about it." He blinked a bit. "Or don't find it interesting." His smile became less nervous, and slightly happier. "It's nice to have someone around who's interested in what I do, even if they don't always quite grasp what I'm on about."

He smiled at Donna. She smiled back, and placed her hand on his affectionately.

"Honestly, I couldn't believe she was only doing basic administration work, a woman like her."

"Oi, don't knock it," Donna warned, half-playfully. "Imagine where you' be without good, organised admin staff to sort everything out for you."

The professor grimaced.

"Erm, while we're on the subject of organisation," he began, getting an amused smile from Donna who knew where this was going and clearly didn't think it was the same subject at all, "I've asked Donna to move in with me."

Donna's mother and grandfather stared at the two with stunned expressions.

"If it's alright with you, I'll move out sometime next week," Donna agreed cheerfully.

"Of course," Sylvia said, a little blankly.

"Good for you." Wilf looked a tiny bit sad, but mostly he looked happy for them.

"Your friend is fine," Time said. The Doctor had almost forgotten she was there. "She may not remember all the things she did with you, but she is still the person she blossomed into by the end of it. Deep down she knows what she's capable of, and she will do her best to achieve it."

"I know,' the Doctor said quietly, blinking back tears. The thing that had hurt most about sealing away Donna's memories was the fear that he was undoing all the good that had happened to her, and that she would never again reach her potential or have faith in herself.

Clearly that wasn't going to be a problem. Consciously, Donna had no access to her memories of her time with the Doctor, but on a subconscious level she was still connected with the things she had accomplished.

The Doctor and the Eternal vanished from the gathering, without anyone noticing they had been there in the first place.

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**End Part Three**

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_Two chapters to go..._


End file.
